The subject matter disclosed herein relates to a microscope, in particular, a miniaturized microscope that enables both phase contrast and multicolor fluorescence imaging.
Microscopes are used for acquiring information regarding one or more properties or aspects of biological samples. Certain types of microscopes (e.g., fluorescent microscopes) require sophisticated and expensive optical lenses, one or more motion control stages, and a charge coupled device (CCD) camera. Further, certain microscopes utilize bulky and expensive components (e.g., high precision actuators for autofocusing). As a result, the traditional fluorescent microscopes are bulky, slow, and costly. Due to these attributes, the utilization of these microscopes is limited to laboratory settings, which makes it difficult for them to be utilized in the field. Even further, these microscopes may be limited in their functionality (i.e., the types of imaging that may be utilized or having a limited field of view).